Finding Home
by LigerEye
Summary: When his mother died, Jack Marston was left without a family, without anyone else in the world, without a home. What will it take for him to find home once more?
_**Finding Home**_

 **Chapter I — A Man With No Home**

The splashing of hooves in the puddles that formed on the soaked road and the roar of thunder where the only sounds that greeted Jack Marston on his journey that Friday afternoon. Two months had passed since he had avenged his namesake, but there had been nary an iota of satisfaction. His sister, his father, Uncle, his dog, his mother—all were gone. He had no one, and the only things he had in the world now were material possessions, the trappings of the status his father had tried to win for his family. Certainly, to at once possess $20,000 in 1914 left one no where near poverty. Upon the death of Abigail Marston, all of the properties John Marston, Sr. had acquired throughout West Elizabeth, New Austin and Nuevo Paraiso passed to their son. All of the Elder John Marston's weapons, all of his possessions, now belonged to Jack. Yes, the Young Marston could be regarded as either a yeoman or minor gentry by this point—he was certainly not as deprived as the burgeoning proletariat—but he was also most certainly not a bourgeois. Nevertheless, the money, the lands, the horses, the things, none of these matter when you have no family, no loved ones, no true friends.

Certainly Jack would have had no difficulty making friends if he so permitted himself. All the strangers his father had helped, and additionally those he himself had come to help as well were eternally grateful. Earlier that same same day, he'd recovered a supply wagon for a woman who was under the employ of the Manzanita Trading Co. at Manzanita Post. She'd expressed her gratitude as he returned the wagon, but after that the woman seemed to become... bashful? As though she had encountered some heartthrob and did not know how to conduct herself, verbally tripping over any words she attempted to say. It was always a surprise for Jack to find that a woman was attracted to him—his self-esteem had been so battered by losing so many loved ones so fast that it was difficult for him to entertain a positive thought of himself now. Certainly, when the prostitutes in Armadillo and Blackwater would tell him how cute he was, attempt to flirt with him, et cetera, he could explain that away as just the empty appeals of a financially-deprived woman seeking to make a living. Perhaps in the case of the woman at the Trading Company, he could explain it away as woman who was highly grateful for having he job saved. Either way, he needed to explain away every attraction, every possible friendship, for to let anyone in, to let anyone become important to him... he'd just end up losing them in the end, just like he'd lost everyone else he'd ever loved.

Where he lacked in human interaction, he filled the time with work and play. In the three years since his father's death, Jack had actually become a professional-quality hunter. The preceding morning he had set out on a hunting expedition in the forests of Tall Trees, intending to keep at it throughout the weekend and come down from the hills the succeeding Monday morning, but the weather had other ideas. Jack had spent the entire day Thursday hunting, setting up camp until well after nightfall. Then he commenced again at around three in the morning, though when the thunderstorm rolled in soon after sunrise, he found himself in a torrential downpour that only made the task more dangerous. With all of the already well-camouflaged grizzlies in the area, anything that limited visibility could have a lethal impact. So he gave in and returned to Manzanita Post, but far from empty handed: his harvest was actually quite impressive for the short span of time he'd been in the woods, including 44 elk, 40 wolves, 16 grizzlies, a number of bucks and deer, a couple of foxes, some raccoons, a couple of bighorn sheep, and so forth. All told, he walked out of the Trading Company general store four thousand dollars richer than he'd been Thursday morning.

He immediately thereafter retired to the cabin his father had purchased at Manzanita three years earlier. It was one of Jack's least appreciated properties, seeing as the two twin beds in the one-room shack served only two remind him of his solitude in life. After changing out of his hunting clothes, he took a nap, hoping that the storm would pass while he was unconscious, and perhaps then he might return to the hunt. Unfortunately, the storm had not even weakened by the time he rose, so that idea was pretty much dead. Weighing his options, he decided that if he could not work, at least he could engage in another of his pastimes: gambling. Poker, blackjack, liar's dice, five-finger fillet, even betting of horse shoes gave him an engaging way to kill time. Recently he had received an open invitation to the exclusive high-stakes poker room in the Blackwater Hotel. So, he decided on a destination.

"I don't want your rabies," he quipped as he unloaded a magazine from his Colt 1911 pistol into a pack of wolves who'd taken too keen an interest in him and his horse. Surely, if they'd gotten to the point of attacking, he would have been somewhat protected by his mount, but the flaxen-maned war horse he'd affectionately dubbed "Blondie" was, even if his language toward the mare was sometimes less than loving, the only living thing he had left that he loved and hadn't lost. He'd be damned if he was going to let the wolves take her away from him.

Barely fifty yards after his encounter with the wolves, he came across something else that drew his attention, that forced him to stop. The last time he'd been to Beecher's Hope was after he buried his mother, just before he set out to wreak vengeance upon Ross for what he'd done to his father. Speechless, his heart sank as he looked down the driveway leading to his family estate. If the cabin at Manzanita Post was uncomfortable for him, Beecher's Hope tortured him. On the one hand, it was his birthright; but what kind of home could it be with no family, no loved ones?

' _I should visit ma and pa_ ,' he nevertheless thought to himself. Yet another clap of thunder punctuated his thought—his parents, though deceased, deserved to at least be visited by their only surviving child. ' _Blackwater can wait_ ,' he thought as he proceeded down the path leading to his empty home.

As he hitched his horse at the hitching post outside the barn, he could faintly hear the ghostly sound of a dog barking in the distance. This caused him still more to dread the thought of coming home. Rufus died in 1913, on the second anniversary of the fateful day the army, in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, invaded Beecher's Hope. The barking was something that always unnerved Jack since Rufus died.

Ignoring the distant barking, another clap of thunder punctuated Jack's movement as he began to walk toward the hill on which his family was buried. ' _I've really let you down, pa_ ,' he thought as he walked by the empty corral that once held so many cattle. After Abigail Marston fell ill, Jack sold the entire herd in order to free up his time to concentrate on taking care of his mother. But ever since his mother passed, the sight of that empty enclosure reminded him of his father's unfulfilled dreams. John never would have wanted Jack to live the sort of life he'd lived himself, and killing Ross, then proceeding to wander around the two American and one Mexican states with no roots set down, not even at the family home—this was not what John or Abigail would have wanted for their son. Jack was conscious of this, but the pain of being here was enough that he could only bear it for this one task.

"Hey Uncle," he said as he walked by the grave of his father's oldest friend. "Ma, pa," he added as he knelt before his parents' graves. He was kneeling in a rather sizable mud puddle, but he paid no mind to this as he addressed his departed family. "Sorry I haven't been to visit recently." A clap of thunder sounded as he finished that sentence, almost as though it were a reply. "I don't know what I'm doing, why I'm here anymore. The pain of it all, it's too much to bear, but I know you'd want me to bear it, so I do as best as I can. I miss you so much," it was now impossible to tell if the water flowing down his cheeks were rain or tears, "and I'm sorry that I haven't been home in a while, but without you here, without _anyone_ here, it just don't feel like home. I know you didn't want me to kill Ross, but after everything he did to you, to _us_ , I just couldn't let it go. Don't worry though, pa, I won't live the life you tried to keep me away from. No one knows I killed Ross, my name is still clear. I've been focusing myself on legitimate work, hunting, sometimes bounty hunting. Once in a while I break a horse or two."

As the emotions overcame him, as his chest began to feel heavy, almost as though a bull were sitting directly on his heart and lungs, he knew he had to go. Without a further word, he put his hat back on his head and walked away, down off the hill. As he mounted his horse once more, a clap of thunder sounded, immediately followed by that damn barking—it felt almost as though Rufus's spirit was telling him not to go, but he knew he couldn't stay. These feelings would kill him if he let them catch up to him for too long. He had to stay ahead of them. Without a further thought, he set out at full speed toward Blackwater.

But he'd scarcely made it half of the distance between Beecher's Hope and Blackwater when he came across a woman, who was very clearly a lady of the night. "Hey mister, can you help a lady out?" she inquired of him, her wagon having very clearly come to the end of its lifespan. "I need to get to the next town, but this old thing can't take me. Can you help?"

"I ain't got nothin' better to do," he responded as he helped the grateful woman onto the back of his horse, and the two continued the ride toward Blackwater. It was twenty after six when they passed the church, and he dropped her off at the Blackwater Ferry dock at 6:25 PM.

"I'm most grateful," she said as she hugged him and gave him sixty dollars. Without another word, she left to wait for her boat. For his part, Jack hadn't said a word. The story of his adult life thus far: grateful people thanking him for his help, should at the very least provide an ample opportunity to make friends. But he always lets the opportunity slip away.

It was 6:35 PM when Jack finally made it to the Blackwater Saloon. Not staying for long, he quickly made another change of clothes and walked to the Blackwater Hotel.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**  
This is the first story I've gotten around to writing for a while, so I might be a bit rusty. I ask that you please bear with me as I get back into the swing of things. I feel this chapter's quality kinda sucks, but hopefully I can return to the quality with which I wrote the better parts of _Ascension of the Beast_.


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